Tactical Error (39 page)

“How do you feel, Valthyrra?” Velmeran asked.

“I feel... I am in perfect operating condition, Commander,” she
said, reinterpreting his question into simpler terms. “My function as the
guiding intelligence of this ship is a very rewarding experience. I enjoy the
companionship of other intelligent beings.”

Consherra glanced away, and even Venn Saevyn seemed discouraged. Velmeran
knew that he would have to try harder. He had left clues embedded within her
memories just before she had gone into battle, clues that he now hoped to call
upon to shock her programming into operation. If he could only help her to
remember how she had felt, the sadness, regret, and fear that she had been
experiencing at that most important moment in her life, when she had faced the
end of her existence without the certainty of knowing whether she had really
ever been alive, or if she had existed only as a very complex machine with the
ability to delude itself with the illusion of life.

“Do you remember the last time we spoke together, on the bridge of the
old Methryn just before you went into battle?” he said. “Do you
remember how very frightened and uncertain you were?”

Valthyrra rotated her camera pod slightly to one side as she struggled with
emotions that her primary programming was not advanced enough to handle.
“Yes, I remember speaking with you. I remember that I had lost something,
but I did not know what it was or where to find it.”

“You were looking for your soul,” he reminded her. “Do you
remember how frightened you were? Feel that fear again. Recall your
despair.”

“I remember,” Valthyrra said softly, then lifted her camera pod
in a gesture of pain and despair. “I was never afraid to die, but I was
terrified by the thought that I had never lived.”

“You were looking for your soul,” Velmeran told her, forcing her
deeper into the pain of her memories. “Did you find your soul?”

She turned to look at him, the lenses of her camera pod rotating to focus
in. “I do not know. If I did know, then I have forgotten.”

“You keep your soul in the same place the rest of us have our
own,” he said, the very same words that he had used during their last
meeting. “In the hearts and minds of others. Your spirit is with us. We
have kept it safe for you.”

“When you see me again, then you will know the truth in that,”
Valthyrra concluded from her own memories, the very last thing she remembered
from her life aboard the old Methryn. She turned aside, and the others stood
waiting in silence. After a long moment she lifted her camera pod to an alert
attitude and turned to look at them. “Well, why is everyone just standing
around looking stupid? I thought we were going for a ride.”

“To your stations, everyone,” Velmeran said. “Val, do you
feel up to it?”

“I feel fine, Commander. All moorings are clear, and all major systems
are powered up.”

“Whenever you are ready,” he told her, then glanced up at her.
“It is good to have you back, old friend.”

She rotated her camera pod around to look at him. “I am glad to have
you back, Commander. It does my soul good.”

The Methryn backed smoothly out of her bay, then pivoted around and began to
accelerate swiftly away from the station. Moments later, a second vast, dark
shape joined her as the Vardon fell in to one side and slightly behind. They were
two well-matched ships, silver hulls edged in black with six powerful main
drives phasing smoothly. The Valcyr took the position opposite the Vardon
seconds later, solid black, her four main drives flaring to match speed with
the newer ships. They flew together in a tight “V” formation,
moving steadily to light speed and their course to Terra.

Clouds of fighters moved in slowly behind the carriers, moving in a dense,
disorganized mass. They separated into two distinct groups, one aligning with
the Methryn and the other with the Valcyr, fighters that had been based at the
station until they were ready to be brought aboard their ships. Twelve packs
had left the Methryn and fifteen returned, their numbers augmented by the Mock
Starwolves. All ten packs assigned to the Valcyr were coming home for the first
time, the first fighters to see her decks in fifty thousand years, three of new
pilots and seven transferred from other ships.

As they moved in beneath the inactive stardrives in the tails of the immense
carriers, the crowds of fighters suddenly began to fall into order, nine at a
time dropping into the V formation of the packs as they moved in beneath the
carriers and moved smoothly into their bays. They were all aboard within a
minute, the bay doors closing as the fighters were locked into their racks for
starflight.

The three carriers widened their formation, putting a little more distance
between themselves as they neared light speed. A deep, golden glow began to
grow deep within their stardrives, erupting into sudden flares of tremendous
power. The three carriers moved as one into starflight, carried on shafts of
brilliant light.